We give an overview of how calculus of the embedding functor can be used for the study of long knots and summarize various results connecting the calculus approach to the rational homotopy type of spaces of long knots, collapse of the Vassiliev spectral sequence, Hochschild homology of the Poisson operad, finite type knot invariants, etc. Some open questions and conjectures of interest are given throughout.
We associate a Taylor tower supplied by calculus of the embedding functor to the space of long knots and study its cohomology spectral sequence. The combinatorics of the spectral sequence along the line of total degree zero leads to chord diagrams with relations as in finite type knot theory. We show that the spectral sequence collapses along this line and that the Taylor tower represents a universal finite type knot invariant.
Manifold calculus of functors, due to M. Weiss, studies contravariant functors from the poset of open subsets of a smooth manifold to topological spaces. We introduce "multivariable" manifold calculus of functors which is a generalization of this theory to functors whose domain is a product of categories of open sets. We construct multivariable Taylor approximations to such functors, classify multivariable homogeneous functors, apply this classification to compute the derivatives of a functor, and show what this gives for the space of link maps. We also relate Taylor approximations in single v…
The category of small covariant functors from simplicial sets to simplicial sets supports the projective model structure. In this paper we construct various localizations of the projective model structure and also give a variant for functors from simplicial sets to spectra. We apply these model categories in the study of calculus of functors, namely for a classification of polynomial and homogeneous functors. In the $n$-homogeneous model structure, the $n$-th derivative is a Quillen functor to the category of spectra with $Σ_n$-action. After taking into account only finitary functors -- which …
This paper investigates the space of codimension zero embeddings of a Poincare duality space in a disk. One of our main results exhibits a tower that interpolates from the space of Poincare immersions to a certain space of "unlinked" Poincare embeddings. The layers of this tower are described in terms of the coefficient spectra of the identity appearing in Goodwillie's homotopy functor calculus. We also answer a question posed to us by Sylvain Cappell. The appendix proposes a conjectural relationship between our tower and the manifold calculus tower for the smooth embedding space.
We study homology groups of posets with functor coefficients and apply our results to give a novel approach to study Khovanov homology of knots and related homology theories.
We develop a generalization of manifold calculus in the sense of Goodwillie-Weiss where the manifold is replaced by a simplicial complex. We consider functors from the category of open subsets of a fixed simplical complex into the category of topological spaces and prove an analogue of the approximation theorem. Namely, under certain conditions such a functor can be approximated by a tower of (appropriately adapted) polynomial functors.
In this paper we present background results in enriched category theory and enriched model category theory necessary for developing model categories of enriched functors suitable for doing functor calculus.
We construct a calculus of functors in the spirit of orthogonal calculus, which is designed to study "functors with reality" such as the Real classifying space functor, $BU_\mathbb{R}(-)$. The calculus produces a Taylor tower, the $n$-th layer of which is classified by a spectrum with an action of $C_2 \ltimes U(n)$. We further give model categorical considerations, producing a zig-zag of Quillen equivalences between spectra with an action of $C_2 \ltimes U(n)$ and a model structure on the category of input functors which captures the homotopy theory of the $n$-th layer of the Taylor tower.
We show that the map on components from the space of classical long knots to the n-th stage of its Goodwillie-Weiss embedding calculus tower is a map of monoids whose target is an abelian group and which is invariant under clasper surgery. We deduce that this map on components is a finite type-(n-1) knot invariant. We also compute the second page in total degree zero for the spectral sequence converging to the components of this tower as Z-modules of primitive chord diagrams, providing evidence for the conjecture that the tower is a universal finite-type invariant over the integers. Key to the…
For a finite dimensional real vector space V with inner product, let F(V) be the block structure space, in the sense of surgery theory, of the projective space of V. Continuing a program launched in part I, we investigate F as a functor on vector spaces with inner product, relying on functor calculus ideas. It was shown in part I that F agrees with its first Taylor approximation T_1 F (which is a polynomial functor of degree 1) on vector spaces V with dim(V) > 5. To convert this theorem into a functorial homotopy-theoretic description of F(V), one needs to know in addition what T_1 F(V) is whe…
For a smooth manifold M, we define a topological space X(k,M), and show that polynomial functors O(M)--> C of degree <= k from the poset of open subsets of M to a simplicial model category can be classified be a version of linear functors from O(X(k,M)) to C.
We present an introduction to the manifold calculus of functors, due to Goodwillie and Weiss. Our perspective focuses on the role the derivatives of a functor F play in this theory, and the analogies with ordinary calculus. We survey the construction of polynomial functors, the classification of homogeneous functors, and results regarding convergence of the Taylor tower. We sprinkle examples throughout, and pay special attention to spaces of smooth embeddings.
We show that the category of $n$-excisive functors from the $\infty$-category of spectra to a target stable $\infty$-category $\mathbf{E}$ is equivalent to the category of $\mathbf{E}$-valued Mackey functors on an indexing category built from finite sets and surjections. This new classification of polynomial functors arises from an investigation of the structure present on cross effects. The path to this result involves a pair of surprising extension theorems for polynomial functors and a discussion of some interesting topics in semiadditive $\infty$- category theory, including a formula for t…
The discriminant method is a tool for describing the cohomology, or the homotopy type, of certain spaces of smooth maps with uncomplicated singularities from a smooth compact manifold L to R^k. We recast some of it in the language of functor calculus. This reformulation allows us to use the discriminant method in a setting where we wish to impose conditions on the multilocal behavior of smooth maps f from L to R^k.
This is a continuation, completion, and generalization of our previous joint work with B. Chorny. We supply model structures and Quillen equivalences underlying Goodwillie's constructions on the homotopy level for functors between simplicial model categories satisfying mild hypotheses.
For the space of long knots in R^3, Vassiliev's theory defines the so called finite order cocycles. Zero degree cocycles are finite type knot invariants. The first non-trivial cocycle of positive dimension in the space of long knots has dimension one and order three. We apply Vassiliev's combinatorial formula, and find the value mod 2 of this cocycle on the 1-cycles that are obtained by dragging knots one along the other or by rotating around a fixed line.
Recently, the Johnson-McCarthy discrete calculus for homotopy functors was extended to include functors from an unbased simplicial model category to spectra. This paper completes the constructions needed to ensure that there exists a discrete calculus tower for functors from an unbased simplicial model category to chain complexes over a fixed commutative ring. Much of the construction of the Taylor tower for functors to spectra carries over to this context. However, one of the essential steps in the construction requires proving that a particular functor is part of a cotriple. For this, one ne…
We study functors from spaces to spaces or spectra that preserve weak homotopy equivalences. For each such functor we construct a universal n-excisive approximation, which may be thought of as its n-excisive part. Homogeneous functors, meaning n-excisive functors with trivial (n-1)-excisive part, can be classified: they correspond to symmetric functors of n variables that are reduced and 1-excisive in each variable. We discuss some important examples, including the identity functor and Waldhausen's algebraic K-theory.
It is known that in the integral cohomology of BSO(2m), the square of the Euler class is the same as the Pontryagin class in degree 4m. Given that the Pontryagin classes extend rationally to the cohomology of BSTOP(2m), it is reasonable to ask whether the same relation between the Euler class and the Pontryagin class in degree 4m is still valid in the rational cohomology of BSTOP(2m). In this paper we use smoothing theory and tools from homotopy theory to reformulate the hypothesis, and variants, in a differential topology setting and in a functor calculus setting.
Goodwillie's homotopy functor calculus constructs a Taylor tower of approximations to F, often a functor from spaces to spaces. Weiss's orthogonal calculus provides a Taylor tower for functors from vector spaces to spaces. In particular, there is a Weiss tower associated to the functor which sends a vector space V to F evaluated at the one-point compactification of V. In this paper, we give a comparison of these two towers and show that when F is analytic the towers agree up to weak equivalence. We include two main applications, one of which gives as a corollary the convergence of the Weiss Ta…
Manifold calculus is a form of functor calculus that analyzes contravariant functors from some categories of manifolds to topological spaces by providing analytic approximations to them. In this paper, using the technique of the $h$-principle, we show that for a symplectic manifold $N$, the analytic approximation to the Lagrangian embeddings functor $\mathrm{Emb}_{\mathrm{Lag}}(-,N)$ is the totally real embeddings functor $\mathrm{Emb}_{\mathrm{TR}}(-,N)$. More generally, for subsets $\mathcal{A}$ of the $m$-plane Grassmannian bundle $\mathrm{Gr}(m,TN)$ for which the $h$-principle holds for $\…
We study a connection between mapping spaces of bimodules and of infinitesimal bimodules over an operad. As main application and motivation of our work, we produce an explicit delooping of the manifold calculus tower associated to the space of smooth maps $D^{m}\rightarrow D^{n}$ of discs, $n\geq m$, avoiding any given multisingularity and coinciding with the standard inclusion near $\partial D^{m}$. In particular, we give a new proof of the delooping of the space of disc embeddings in terms of little discs operads maps with the advantage that it can be applied to more general mapping spaces.
We describe Taylor towers for spaces of knots arising from Goodwillie-Weiss calculus of the embedding functor and extend the configuration space integrals of Bott and Taubes from spaces of knots to the stages of the towers. We show that certain combinations of integrals, indexed by trivalent diagrams, yield cohomology classes of the stages of the tower, just as they do for ordinary knots.
Embedding Calculus, as described by Weiss, is a calculus of functors, suitable for studying contravariant functors from the poset of open subsets of a smooth manifold M, denoted O(M), to a category of topological spaces (of which the functor Emb(-,N) for some fixed manifold N is a prime example). Polynomial functors of degree k can be characterized by their restriction to O_k(M), the full subposet of O(M) consisting of open sets which are a disjoint union of at most k components, each diffeomorphic to the open unit ball. In this work, we replace O_k(M) by more general subposets and see that we…
In this paper, we consider abelian functor calculus, the calculus of functors of abelian categories established by the second author and McCarthy. We carefully construct a category of abelian categories and suitably homotopically defined functors, and show that this category, equipped with the directional derivative, is a cartesian differential category in the sense of Blute, Cockett, and Seely. This provides an abstract framework that makes certain analogies between classical and functor calculus explicit. Inspired by Huang, Marcantognini, and Young's chain rule for higher order directional d…
We define a theory of Goodwillie calculus for enriched functors from finite pointed simplicial G-sets to symmetric G-spectra, where G is a finite group. We extend a notion of G-linearity suggested by Blumberg to define stably excisive and rho-analytic homotopy functors, as well as a G-differential, in this equivariant context. A main result of the paper is that analytic functors with trivial derivatives send highly connected G-maps to G-equivalences. It is analogous to the classical result of Goodwillie that "functors with zero derivative are locally constant". As main example we show that Hes…
We show that one can use model categories to construct rational orthogonal calculus. That is, given a continuous functor from vector spaces to based spaces one can construct a tower of approximations to this functor depending only on the rational homology type of the input functor, whose layers are given by rational spectra with an action of $O(n)$. By work of Greenlees and Shipley, we see that these layers are classified by torsion $H^*(B SO(n))[O(n)/SO(n)]$-modules.
This is a (slightly edited) version of the PhD dissertation of the author, submitted to Brown University in July 2005. We construct a homotopy calculus of functors in the sense of Goodwillie for the categories of rational homotopy theory. More precisely, given a homotopy functor between any of the categories of differential graded vector spaces (DG), reduced differential graded vector spaces, differential graded Lie algebras (DGL), and differential graded coalgebras (DGC), we show that there is an associated approximating "rational Taylor tower" of excisive functors. The fibers in this tower a…
We study the structure possessed by the Goodwillie derivatives of a pointed homotopy functor of based topological spaces. These derivatives naturally form a bimodule over the operad consisting of the derivatives of the identity functor. We then use these bimodule structures to give a chain rule for higher derivatives in the calculus of functors, extending that of Klein and Rognes. This chain rule expresses the derivatives of FG as a derived composition product of the derivatives of F and G over the derivatives of the identity. There are two main ingredients in our proofs. Firstly, we construct…
One of the fundamental tools of undergraduate calculus is the chain rule. The notion of higher order directional derivatives was developed by Huang, Marcantognini, and Young, along with a corresponding higher order chain rule. When Johnson and McCarthy established abelian functor calculus, they proved a chain rule for functors that is analogous to the directional derivative chain rule when $n = 1$. In joint work with Bauer, Johnson, and Riehl, we defined an analogue of the iterated directional derivative and provided an inductive proof of the analogue to the chain rule of Huang et al. This pap…
We formulate and prove a chain rule for the derivative, in the sense of Goodwillie, of compositions of weak homotopy functors from simplicial sets to simplicial sets. The derivative spectrum dF(X) of such a functor F at a simplicial set X can be equipped with a right action by the loop group of its domain X, and a free left action by the loop group of its codomain Y = F(X). The derivative spectrum d(E o F)(X)$ of a composite of such functors is then stably equivalent to the balanced smash product of the derivatives dE(Y) and dF(X), with respect to the two actions of the loop group of Y. As an …
Given a compact manifold X, the set of simple manifold structures on X x Δ^k relative to the boundary can be viewed as the k-th homotopy group of a space §^s (X). This space is called the block structure space of X. We study the block structure spaces of real projective spaces. Generalizing Wall's join construction we show that there is a functor from the category of finite dimensional real vector spaces with inner product to the category of pointed spaces which sends the vector space V to the block structure space of the projective space of V. We study this functor from the point of view of o…
The Taylor tower of a functor from based spaces to spectra can be classified according to the action of a certain comonad on the collection of derivatives of the functor. We describe various equivalent conditions under which this action can be lifted to the structure of a module over the Koszul dual of the little L-discs operad. In particular, we show that this is the case when the functor is a left Kan extension from a certain category of `pointed framed L-manifolds' and pointed framed embeddings. As an application we prove that the Taylor tower of Waldhausen's algebraic K-theory of spaces fu…
Let M be a smooth manifold, and let O(M) be the poset of open subsets of M. Let C be a category that has a zero object and all small limits. A homogeneous functor (in the sense of manifold calculus) of degree k from O(M) to C is called very good if it sends isotopy equivalences to isomorphisms. In this paper we show that the category VGHF of such functors is equivalent to the category of contravariant functors from the fundamental groupoid of Conf(k, M) to C, where Conf(k, M) stands for the unordered configuration space of k points in M. As a consequence of this result, we show that the catego…
Let M be a smooth manifold and V a Euclidean space. Let Ebar(M,V) be the homotopy fiber of the map from Emb(M,V) to Imm(M,V). This paper is about the rational homology of Ebar(M,V). We study it by applying embedding calculus and orthogonal calculus to the bi-functor (M,V) |--> HQ /\Ebar(M,V)_+. Our main theorem states that if the dimension of V is more than twice the embedding dimension of M, the Taylor tower in the sense of orthogonal calculus (henceforward called ``the orthogonal tower'') of this functor splits as a product of its layers. Equivalently, the rational homology spectral sequence…
We associate to a bimonoidal functor, i.e. a bifunctor which is monoidal in each variable, a nonabelian version of a biextension. We show that such a biextension satisfies additional triviality conditions which make it a bilinear analog of the kind of spans known as butterflies and, conversely, these data determine a bimonoidal functor. We extend this result to $n$-variables, and prove that, in a manner analogous to that of butterflies, these multi-extensions can be composed. This is phrased in terms of a multilinear functor calculus in a bicategory. As an application, we study a bimonoidal ca…
We develop an approach to Goodwillie's calculus of functors using the techniques of higher topos theory. Central to our method is the introduction of the notion of fiberwise orthogonality, a strengthening of ordinary orthogonality which allows us to give a number of useful characterizations of the class of $n$-excisive maps. We use these results to show that the pushout product of a $P_n$-equivalence with a $P_m$-equivalence is a $P_{m+n+1}$-equivalence. Then, building on our previous work, we prove a Blakers-Massey type theorem for the Goodwillie tower. We show how to use the resulting techni…
We define an ``algebraic'' version of the Goodwillie tower, P_n^alg F(X), that depends only on the behavior of F on coproducts of X. When F is a functor to connected spaces or grouplike H-spaces, the functor P_n^alg F is the base of a fibration whose fiber is the simplicial space associated to a cotriple built from the (n+1) cross effect of the functor F. When the connectivity of X is large enough (for example, when F is the identity functor and X is connected), the algebraic Goodwillie tower agrees with the ordinary (topological) Goodwillie tower, so this theory gives a way of studying the Go…
We prove two theorems about Goodwillie calculus and use those theorems to describe new models for Goodwillie derivatives of functors between pointed compactly-generated infinity-categories. The first theorem say that the construction of higher derivatives for spectrum-valued functors is a Day convolution of copies of the first derivative construction. The second theorem says that the derivatives of any functor can be realized as natural transformation objects for derivatives of spectrum-valued functors. Together these results allow us to construct an infinity-operad that models the derivatives…
Let M be a smooth manifold, and let O(M) be the poset of open subsets of M. Manifold calculus, due to Goodwillie and Weiss, is a calculus of functors suitable for studying contravariant functors (cofunctors) F: O(M)--> Top from O(M) to the category of spaces. Weiss showed that polynomial cofunctors of degree <= k are determined by their values on O_k(M), where O_k(M) is the full subposet of O(M) whose objects are open subsets diffeomorphic to the disjoint union of at most k balls. Afterwards Pryor showed that one can replace O_k(M) by more general subposets and still recover the same notion of…
We study functors F from C_f to D where C and D are simplicial model categories and C_f is the full subcategory of C consisting of objects that factor a fixed morphism f from A to B. We define the analogs of Eilenberg and Mac Lane's cross effects functors in this context, and identify explicit adjoint pairs of functors whose associated cotriples are the diagonals of the cross effects. With this, we generalize the cotriple Taylor tower construction of [10] from the setting of functors from pointed categories to abelian categories to that of functors from C_f to D to produce a tower of functors …
The orthogonal and unitary calculi give a method to study functors from the category of real or complex inner product spaces to the category of based topological spaces. We construct functors between the calculi from the complexification-realification adjunction between real and complex inner product spaces. These allow for movement between the versions of calculi, and comparisons between the Taylor towers produced by both calculi. We show that when the inputted orthogonal functor is weakly polynomial, the Taylor tower of the functor restricted through realification and the restricted Taylor t…
Recent work of Biedermann and Röndigs has translated Goodwillie's calculus of functors into the language of model categories. Their work focuses on symmetric multilinear functors and the derivative appears only briefly. In this paper we focus on understanding the derivative as a right Quillen functor to a new model category. This is directly analogous to the behaviour of Weiss's derivative in orthogonal calculus. The immediate advantage of this new category is that we obtain a streamlined and more informative proof that the n-homogeneous functors are classified by spectra with an action of the…
